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Topic: Voices (Read 5228 times)

I don't like the sound of my voice, either. To my own ears, it's just ok, but recorded, I sound like I'm about 10. People have told me that, too. It also just sounds...weird. Just yuck. Even when people tell me I have a pretty voice and a pretty singing voice, it's hard to believe them.

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"And neither the angels in heaven above, nor the demons down under the sea can ever dissever my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabel Lee"

When I am at work, I deliberately concentrate on lowering my voice an octave or twelve when I am on the phone. I have got several offers of dates etc, and a customer-friend says I sound really sexy on the phone. I don't answer it much, so it is not a constant thing.

However, at home, or when I am not concentrating/tired, I don't bother and apparently I sound like a two-year-old who got to Mummy's phone first! MG has played back my messages sometimes when I leave one, and they are right. I sound like a small child! No wonder telemarketers always ask me if my parents are home!

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ConsistencyIt's only a virtue if you're not a screwup - Demotivators(R)

I really don't like how I sound on the phone. I could easily be (and often am) mistaken for a dude. I CAN make it sound sexy if I try, but I really don't feel the need to sound like a p0rn actress while I'm at work. I try to go up an octive when I'm speaking in front of a group, but it's difficult to hold it that way for too long. Also, I speak in monotone. I try not to, but if I try to add inflection I just sound like I smoked a bunch of crack. That comes from a teacher making fun of my voice when I was younger

I do realize that it could be a lot worse though. I would personally rather have a low voice than a high-pitched squeaky one. It just wouldn't suit me at all

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Don't fear god;Don't worry about death;What is good is easy to get;What is difficult is easy to endure.

I hate my voice. It sounds fine to my ears but when I listen to it back it just sounds wrong. I had to listen to tapes of my calls when I worked in a call centre. I hated that. My voice just sounded odd and very deep. I wondered how anybody could understand me on the phone. I am told though I sound like my sister and my mom once thought I was her when I called on the phone once. She asked me how her husband was. And I was like I don't know. She then figured out she was talking to me.

I don't know that I hate the sound of my voice, but it's fairly unrecognizable when it is taped. I had a freind who, way back when VCRs were still cool, had a VCR capable of dubbing. We would get together and dub TV shows- making up the dialog as we went. When he would play it back - and of course it didn't sound that off to me- people who were there wondered what had happened to the tape whenever I spoke. Well, nothing. People- who had known me for years- who watched and listened after the fact asked straight forward whose voice mine was. They refused to believe it was mine until we demonstrated. I think I sound either way more nasally or way less nasally on those than I do in real life.

I will say I've had to work to keep my voice from automatically going high-pitched at times because I can hear myself doing that and it drives me crazy.

I think the reason you sound different on tape then to yourself is because when we speak and hear ourselves, the sound goes through our own head. From the tape you hear your voice as it sounds through air. Your head is not made from air and deforms sound differently. Think of how sound sounds different when played underwater. The reason we hate the sound of our own voice (something that is almost universal) is just because we aren't used to it. I would dare to say that every one of you have lovely voices. You can get used to it though, if you listen to recordings of yourself often enough. For the work that I do (in computer game business) I often have to record placeholder voice over - which is played again and again every time I test the game. Plus, I made some songs for my bard in an online rpg, and I record the songs too so that others can hear how the song should sound like. Hearing a recording of you sing is even harder then hearing yourself talk, because you'll hear every mistake you made too...and the songs I do are in English, which is not my native language, so there is accent.

I think the reason you sound different on tape then to yourself is because when we speak and hear ourselves, the sound goes through our own head. From the tape you hear your voice as it sounds through air. Your head is not made from air and deforms sound differently. Think of how sound sounds different when played underwater.

Probably true; I just know in my case none of my friends could ID my voice on the tape. And everyone else's sounded just like them.

In your case, you might have started talk differently when being taped, even if you weren't conscious of it. People have interesting reactions when they are being taped. Most of them don't even want to be recorded and when they are, they become nervous and their voice changes completely. I've seen/heard it happen before.

I have a voice like a little kid. When I answer the phone, people think I'm my twelve-year-old.

I also cannot sing. I can hit the notes (verified with audio recordings) and don't sound too bad to myself, but there's some timbre in my voice that just makes people unhappy. I've learned to only sing when I'm alone.

I've found, though that I sound great with just a teensy bit of tweaking in post production. In school I did an interactive DVD with voice queues. NO ONE would believe that I used my own voice until I tweaked a file for them...if only I could do that IRL.

ETA - I feel so much better I'm not the only one who's self-conscious about her own voice.

ETA - I feel so much better I'm not the only one who's self-conscious about her own voice.

Almost everyone is. It's just some sort of cognitive dissonance ('do I sound like THAT?'). When people suddenly find out that some quality of them is not how they perceived it themselves, they will distance themselves from it. The same happens when you mirror someone's mirror image- so that they can see how other people see them. The difference is smaller, but enough to freak some people out. (this trick can be done with crossed mirrors).

The same happens when you mirror someone's mirror image- so that they can see how other people see them. The difference is smaller, but enough to freak some people out. (this trick can be done with crossed mirrors).

Yes. One of my front teeth is *ever so slightly* longer than the other, and the first time I saw it in a picture, it sent chills up my spine. Literally. Cognitive dissonance indeed!